


Serdtse t'my (Heart of Darkness)

by Telaryn



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Collateral Damage, Dark, Deaf Clint Barton, F/M, Gen, Interrogation, Killing, Knives, Past Abuse, Physical Abuse, Physical Disability, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rescue, Sexual Tension, Threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 02:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3364148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Telaryn/pseuds/Telaryn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A HYDRA interrogation drives Clint deep into his memories and his darkness.  When he invites Natasha to join him, the invitation is only deferred - not rejected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Serdtse t'my (Heart of Darkness)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhiskyInMind (MomentsLost)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentsLost/gifts).



> This came from a challenge thrown down by Whiskyinmind - to dive as deep as I could into Clint's darker nature and see what kind of story resulted. Something tells me this isn't the only story I'll be scripting here...

_Some things are better left to the darkness._ Clint knew his doctors and Coulson meant well, and when footage surfaced of him in HYDRA custody questions about his responses to physical coercion were only natural. The problem was they were the wrong questions, and they were leading everyone who mattered to answers that could get him pulled from active duty for a very long time.

“I knew I was going to die.” Threatened with being sidelined indefinitely, Clint had finally agreed to come clean to Natasha and Coulson. “I mean, Duquesne had beaten me before, don’t get me wrong. This time was different though. He wanted me dead, and if my brother and Trick Shot hadn’t gotten there when they did, he would have succeeded.”

“So that’s where your head goes during interrogations?” Coulson asked, his fingers steepled as he considered everything Clint was telling him – filing it away in all the appropriate mental folders. “Not to your childhood?”

Clint shook his head. “And it’s not all the time. Remember, I was in the CCU for almost three weeks after that op.” He saw the flash of guilt in Coulson’s eyes almost on cue, and not for the first time wished that he could convince his handler that the double-cross was nothing any of them could have predicted. “I think it’s the moment when I realize I’ve really gone too far – that I’ve pushed in a direction I shouldn’t have, and the fun and games are over.”

Coulson had a few more questions for him. Natasha didn’t say a word during the entire hour they were closeted with their handler. Her silence didn’t bother Clint; he doubted at this point there was much about him that she hadn’t already figured out. And when Coulson finally agreed to intercede with Psych on his behalf, he assumed the matter was closed for good. They were leaving on another mission in three days, and it was a relief for Clint to begin looking forward again.

That mission went perfectly. The intel was solid, the plan went off with only the expected number of hiccups: “Almost as if the universe is getting ready to set us up,” Coulson couldn’t help pointing out.

Clint was as suspicious as any carnie, but when the next half-dozen missions followed in kind it was hard not to believe that they’d hit a genuine streak of luck. 

“Stay frosty,” had been Coulson’s parting words as he and Natasha headed into the field to recon a HYDRA base in southern Germany. “I don’t like how this one looks.”

Clint’s position had been assailed within the hour, as Natasha met with their contact. He was gassed unconscious, Coulson screaming his name into the coms as Nat attempted not to break character. By the time either of them were able to make it to his position he was gone.

Interrogation began almost immediately – HYDRA goons who recognized him for what he was and the information he was potentially privy to. Questioning was civil at first, hooded to keep him disoriented as he regained consciousness, hands bound behind him with zip ties. They went to drugs within twenty-four hours, and physical abuse another forty-eight hours after that. The flashbacks were inevitable at that point, but confessing their existence to Coulson and Natasha had helped Clint make his peace with it – so when he finally heard Duquesne’s voice in his head he was ready for things to go in a different direction this time.

 _”You’re a weapon, boy – no different from any of the hundreds I have back in my tent.”_ Duquesne’s next kick had broken one of Clint’s ribs, lighting up his world in an explosion of pain. _”The last thing I need you to do is think.”_

Memories of past abuse bled into his current agony. They _were_ still trying to ask him questions in between beating him to just this side of death, but his hearing aids had been taken hours earlier, which gave the whole business a ridiculously surreal air.

 _Don’t think…don’t think…don’t think…_ The words beat a tattoo through his brain in time with his pulse as the world around him slowed and stilled. _This is it._ His injuries were piling up, dragging him under for good, and nobody was coming to stop it this time.

 _”Lie to Coulson, lie to the doctors, lie to the whole damn world if you must, Barton, but don’t you dare lie to me.”_ Natasha had seen straight through him – she always did. _Serdtse t'my_ \- the heart of darkness – the thing they all shared that made it possible for them to pull the trigger, loose the arrow, administer the poison – and sleep a full good night when the job was done. 

Embracing that darkness fully was the moment that you became the weapon. _”Don’t ever leave me because you can’t stand for a _prizrak_ like Duquesne to be right.”_

His left hand was being pinned to the floor by a man raising a hammer. Clint lashed out with the chain binding his right arm to the dungeon wall, knocking two of his tormenters back far enough for him to execute a twist and kick to the face of the man getting ready to end his career for good. The move brought him on his feet, in a perfect position to grab hammer-guy’s head between his hands and twist.

The shiver that ran up his arms as he felt the body go limp was so intense he had to stop for a beat to collect himself. Instinct brought his head up in time to see one of the other guards rushing towards him – the fist Clint raised a moment later had a length of chain looped around it. Bone shattered under the impact, blood flew in all directions, and adrenaline made the world sparkle around him.

Keys from one guard, gun and extra clips from another – Clint knew a brief moment of regret that he wouldn’t be able to track down his bow – then he was at the door to his cell, looking for signs that his attack had raised an alarm.

One level up he met a technician walking quickly down the hall, lost in thought. _Research facility,_ the part of Clint’s brain that could still think noted, filing it away for a future report that he likely wouldn’t survive long enough to make. Weapon up, bullet between the eyes, then he was stepping over the body searching for a position where he could get his bearings. 

Instinct spun him twice more in time to put down people who’d entered his range out of his immediate perception. One was another technician, two more were guards – one of which had a hand on her belt as Clint’s bullet ended her life. Red strobes began to flash at different points around the room as he went to search the bodies. The guards’ guns and ammunition clips he stuffed into whatever pockets he could find or make. The older guard’s identification badge was gripped firmly in his off hand as he resumed looking for an escape.

It took clearing three more rooms before Clint’s eyes seemed to settle into the awareness that they were going to be getting no help from his ears. Strangely enough, his skin seemed to also be growing more sensitive with each passing moment. _”You should always be aware of where you are in relation to your enemies.”_ Duquesne’s voice again in his memory, but instead of freezing him this time it seemed to drive him deeper into the blackness. _”It doesn’t matter what they bring against you – you are enough to counter it.”_

He was on the second floor when he found the kitchen and the obscenely large, but surprisingly well balanced knife. _”Any thug can use a gun. It takes an artist to use a blade properly.”_

There was a dim feeling of somebody shouting at him from far away as he dropped one of his revolvers in favor of the knife. He suspected it was Coulson – every practical thought he had seemed to have Coulson or Nat’s voice, and this was too coldly practical to be Nat. Hadn’t she encouraged him to embrace his darkness after all?

The first person he killed with the knife was unarmed, but it didn’t change the rush of almost sexually charged energy that washed over and through him. He killed three more in rapid succession – one by dodging three bullets fired at him from nearly point blank range. Breathing heavily, he used his stolen key card to gain access to the stairwell. One floor he could risk with the tools he had available.

He was halfway to the first landing when instinct drove him around, lashing out with the knife. The point buried itself in flesh, drawing a brief hard line before slipping free. Before he could drive himself forward to finish the task, self-preservation and awareness that the close-fitting black battlesuit filling his vision didn’t belong on an enemy stayed his hand.

_Natasha._

The world stopped as he took in the arm cradled against her chest, the rip in her suit, and the streaks and splashes of blood darkening her pale skin. His fingers flexed and tightened on the hilt of the knife, as he fought the urge to press on, to sink the blade even deeper into her flesh.

 _”Clint? Can you hear me?”_ Blood-stained fingers formed words that tugged at the thinking part of him. Openly trembling now, his fingers still working the hilt of his knife, his attention slid up to her face – to her beautiful green eyes that saw him more clearly than anyone ever had. _”Do you have your hearing aids?”_

It took several heartbeats for the question to penetrate deeply enough for him to understand what she was asking and why. Licking suddenly dry lips, he shook his head. She moved forward then – just a twitch, but it was enough to force him back a full step and bring the blade to bear between them. _”The hard part is remembering to think – remembering that I’m more than just a weapon.”_ Things you told your partner that you never told the shrink – especially because Natasha owed her life to the fact that once upon a time he had paused, had thought – had remembered that he was more.

Fingers moved again. _”Be easy. I don’t want to hurt you.”_ He grinned, welcoming the idea of a fight with her. She would make it good. There would be blood and pain and the rush of dancing on the razor’s edge. “I want you to hurt me.” He felt his throat working, knew his mouth was forming the words, even if he couldn’t hear them. “Need you to hurt me.”

He watched her for a response, on his guard because, well, it was _her_ \- but giving her a chance to understand, to join him in the darkness for the fight of both their lives.

 _“Not here,”_ her fingers whispered at him finally. _”When I deign to bite you, Barton, it will be at a time and place of my choosing, with nobody to get between us.”_ Pain exploded in his wrist and he lost his grip on the knife. Natasha _moved_ then, using their combined momentum to take him down to the landing and onto his back.

He looked up into her face as she crouched above him, reading her lips as she kept speaking. _”I will take your hearing aids and set you loose in the darkness, so that the only thing you will be able to do is feel me coming.”_ She lowered her body until there was only a shiver of contact between them. _”You will bleed for me…you will scream for me…and it will be better than anything you have ever imagined.”_

He was dimly aware that she had been divesting him of his weapons while she was talking, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. This was the truth their souls recognized in each other, even though they’d never said the words out loud. Sensing his opening, he flipped their positions so that she was on her back and he was the one in control. “Promise me,” he said, knowing from the way the words vibrated soundlessly in his throat that his voice was little more than a growl.

“I already have, Barton,” she said, and even though Clint understood that it would still be sometime in the future – her promise that they would one day truly meet in the _serdtse t'my_ was enough.


End file.
